Taurus SHO will pace at Long Beach

Ford is bringing the Taurus SHO to pace at Long Beach.

Fresh off of its win at the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring, Ford’s 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6 will be out front before the green flag even waves in Long Beach.

Ford’s Taurus SHO will be front-and-center as the safety vehicle at the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship at Long Beach Sat., April 12, 2014. The Taurus SHO and Riley Prototypes are powered by the same Ford EcoBoost technology.
Seventy-percent of the engine components are shared between the two. The engine block for the No’s 01 and 02 owned by Chip Ganassi Racing by Felix Sabates and the No. 60 fielded by Michael Shank Racing with Curb/Agajanian come straight off of the assembly line with the rest of the F-Series engine blocks. The aluminum heads and blocks are also the same in the Taurus SHO and EcoBoost Rileys.

What’s different? Only the parts necessary to fit a twin-turbo 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6 to a Riley prototype.

Colin Braun drives the Ford EcoBoost V6

Photo by: Ford Motor Company

The race, featuring two of TUDOR’s Prototypes and GTLM’s, will be televised live Saturday from 3-5 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1 (FS1).

"We know the Taurus SHO is at home on the street or track, and at Long Beach you’ll see that," said Ryan Cashman, Taurus Marketing Manager, Ford Motor Company. "When fans see the Taurus SHO up front, they can know that much of the same technology in the safety vehicle’s 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6 is also present in the prototypes it’s leading around the race course. It’s a perfect demonstration of how EcoBoost is powering Ford on the street and around the race track."

Three prototypes compete under the EcoBoost banner: The 01 and 02 of Ganassi, and the 60 of Michael Shank Racing. The 02 Comfort Revolution/Big Machine Records Ford EcoBoost Riley finished sixth in Sebring after spending a considerable time out front, while the 60 Need For Speed Ford Ecoboost/Riley also made the top 10 with a ninth-place finish.

Before the 2014 season began – the first year for the unified TUDOR United SportsCar Championship – Shank Racing teamed with Ford Racing and its 3.5-liter EcoBoost to break a series of closed-course speed records at Daytona International Speedway that had stood since 1987, setting a new record average lap speed of 222.971 mph around the high-banked oval.